Stitched QR codes and what they can reveal

 This embroidered QR code links through to my website when you read it with a smartphone. However I first became interested in using QR codes as a way of hiding information in plain sight in a decorative way. The idea being that the message could easily be overlooked in the same way as domestic textiles and their makers often are. I sometimes hide text within lace patterns but QR codes can contain much more information in a smaller space. QR codes do have to be quite exact though for the camera on a smart phone to recognise them. My first attempts were made in black bobbin lace but they were not reliable enough to work every time. I tried working the codes at an angle so the squares were cloth stitch diamonds and alternatively with the squares as tallies, but neither worked very well. I also experimented with crochet squares but they became too large for the backgrounds I wanted. I then tried cross stitch embroidery straight onto my background net but that wasn’t reliable either. Eventually I found that cross stitch embroidery on counted thread fabric was the most effective way of producing the QR codes.

This curtain Insider information contains many coded messages that together form a narrative about the domestic environment. The words ‘Help me’ are stitched in human hair on to the curtain, which also includes an embroidered QR code. The code can be read to reveal the words ‘Escape while you can’ while the human hair contains the DNA of the seamstress. Combined with the veil of the curtain they seem a cry for help and a warning to others. Both types of embroidery reference Victorian domestic needlework, such as samplers and mourning brooches, and hint at a gothic tale of confinement and control.